diff --git a/distributed/comm/tcp.py b/distributed/comm/tcp.py
index 3c8f75fd9f..4d8289c904 100644
--- a/distributed/comm/tcp.py
+++ b/distributed/comm/tcp.py
@@ -233,15 +233,15 @@ async def write(self, msg, serializers=None, on_error="message"):
         )
 
         try:
+            nframes = len(frames)
             lengths = [nbytes(frame) for frame in frames]
-            length_bytes = [struct.pack("Q", len(frames))] + [
-                struct.pack("Q", x) for x in lengths
-            ]
+            length_bytes = struct.pack(f"Q{nframes}Q", nframes, *lengths)
             if sum(lengths) < 2 ** 17:  # 128kiB
-                b = b"".join(length_bytes + frames)  # small enough, send in one go
-                stream.write(b)
+                # small enough, send in one go
+                stream.write(b"".join([length_bytes, *frames]))
             else:
-                stream.write(b"".join(length_bytes))  # avoid large memcpy, send in many
+                # avoid large memcpy, send in many
+                stream.write(length_bytes)
 
                 for frame, frame_bytes in zip(frames, lengths):
                     # Can't wait for the write() Future as it may be lost
@@ -398,7 +398,7 @@ def __init__(
         deserialize=True,
         allow_offload=True,
         default_port=0,
-        **connection_args
+        **connection_args,
     ):
         self._check_encryption(address, connection_args)
         self.ip, self.port = parse_host_port(address, default_port)